Super Evil Interview: On Stage With Apple

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Super Evil Megacorp was featured in Apple’s event introducing new iPhones, putting CTO Tommy Krul on stage with a copy of Vainglory, the new multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game that Super Evil Megacorp is preparing to launch on mobile platforms soon.

How did you get this incredible opportunity that many developers would give their left arm for?

Bo Daly: It’s been quite an exciting moment for us. The opportunity came up as a bit of a reward for building a product that’s undeniably pretty solid, and the hard work and effort in chasing that down. We never expected this — we started the company two and a half years ago at a time when it wasn’t really obvious that we would hit a confluence of events between the technology and the market readiness. It feels a little more inevitable now that hard-core games, really high-quality PC style games, are going to be coming to these devices. We still have quite a lot of work to do to actually keep up to the promises that we made to our players. I think Apple recognizes and appreciates the craftsmanship and dedication we’ve put into the game so far.

Bo Daly

Kristian Segerstrale: To me it’s a question of both being fortunate in the timing and having worked a very long time on a product that’s coming to maturity at around the same time as Apple’s products have reached maturity. The other thing that’s really been in our favor is actually having our own engine, the Evil Engine, is something that enables us to not just create incredible gampelay, and push the boundaries of what’s possible on the device, but it also lets us really aggressively chase device opportunities. In this case, when Apple announced Metal technology and also the A8 chip we were very fortunate in that we could actually start working straight on the hardware. We didn’t have to rely on a third-party engine to bring the game to life. All those polygons and dust particles and butterflies, it’s something that we were able to do. It’s not something that we expected, but something that we are incredibly grateful for and we’re obviously very excited, but we still have a lot of work to do.

What has the response been so far to your appearance at Apple’s event?

Kristian Segerstrale: Just the fact we managed to get Apple to project a huge Super Evil Megacorp logo on their stage felt pretty good. I would say overall it’s been pretty overwhelmingly positive, and curious, and encouraging. With any core game, it’s all in the game play. Clearly people are curious to see how this plays. I think there’s a sense of ‘wow, these guys are trying really hard to create something that’s truly a legitimate core game on touch screens.’ Ultimately, that’s what we want to try to convey. It’s not that ‘we have the best game in the world, you just wait,’ it’s more that we’re really hard at work trying to make this for gamers like ourselves and we really appreciate all the support.

What does this imply for Apple’s support of gaming?

Bo Daly: Certainly, we can’t really speak for Apple on that, but they are certainly noticing it and taking some pride in what they have been able to build. iOS is already a pretty impressive gaming platform. Apple really does blur the line between mobile and console gaming. Metal is a big deal for them, and with iOS 8 it’s really going to allow us to do a lot with the hardware and push all kinds of great graphics and great game play. This is a game that we really only ever imagined playing on tablets, so it’s pretty exciting for us.

Kristian Segerstrale: One way that we think about it is that when technology reaches a certain level, and you can get this style of gaming on the devices, we are certainly hoping to be able to help sell hardware at the end of the day. Vainglory on Metal devices on the A8 chip is just incredible. It does run on older devices, but when you compare the two builds next to each other, between the frame rate and the graphical performance you get out of it, it’s like a Blu-Ray running on your HDTV at home. It’s a higher graphical performance than you get on most next-gen consoles right now. From our perspective, we are obviously working hard on Vainglory, but there’s a very fair chance over the next couple of years as these technologies mature and get better we will capture the imagination of core gamers and that will ultimately help sell devices.

Kristian Segerstrale

How would you compare the experience of playing Vainglory on the iPhone 6 Plus to playing on the iPad?

Kristian Segerstrale: We play all the up to big iPads, and typically what you win in terms of individual click position on the bigger screens you lose in terms of the amount your finger needs to move. It’s surprising how well this game plays on a lot smaller screens than we initially thought we were going to put the game on.

How much preparation did you put into this, between getting the software optimized and preparing to demo?

Bo Daly: Certainly there was work to be done to really support the technology. It was well worth the effort, because the Evil Engine gave us the infrastructure we needed to do various things. It gave us a speed boost on that, it took us less time than it could have taken. It wasn’t an easy task by any measure, but we’re really happy we were able to do it.

Now you really have to put up a great game . . .

Bo Daly: That’s absolutely it. The big stage is really humbling, and a great experience, and we’re all super grateful for the exposure and the vote of confidence. But our success is going to be measured in the one-to-one that we make with every player that downloads the game, and that hasn’t really changed through any of this. Our promise to core gamers is that we’re making games that are worthy of their time and attention. Whatever device they’re playing on, the game is played between their mind and the mind of their opponent, and that’s really what it should be for any of these competitive strategic games.

The scarf Tommy Krul wore has become a Twitter sensation . . . was that planned?

Kristian Segerstrale: It’s the subtle art and exact science of well-planned social PR. Tommy can speak for himself, but I did not call that one.

Bo Daly: I did not know that was going to happen. He may have had it all planned, but I haven’t a debrief with him.

Coming Soon: Smart Ads For Apple Watch That Won’t Interrupt

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With the introduction of the Apple Watch, we expect wearables to grow exponentially as an electronics category. No matter how innovative Google Glass was when it was introduced, it, lacked, well, something.

Apple has the opportunity to change the perception of the whole category with Apple Watch. As usual when it comes to Apple products it’s the seamless integration of hardware and software as well as its compatibility with other Apple devices which makes it more than the sum of its parts.

Ad dollars are already flowing to mobile advertising and the possibility of creating native advertising for the Apple Watch is certainly something that excites me. The most common use-case scenario being painted is the following: You walk down the street to meet a friend and as you walk by Starbucks and check the time, you are served a coupon for two-for-one on lattes on your Apple Watch. You go into the store and pick up a latte for you and one for your friend, using your mobile wallet to pay and then post to Facebook about what a great deal you just got.

However, there is so much more you can do. If you think about the opportunity around fitness and health apps. Take note of what Apple says about this device. They call it “their most personal yet” points to features such as “Digital Touch” including a built-in heart rate sensor as well as GPS and Wi-Fi from your iPhone to provide a comprehensive picture of your daily activity. Also other more practical applications such as boarding a plane with a Passbook boarding pass, control your Apple TV or get directions while riding a bike or driving a car.

The challenge for us marketers and advertisers is to figure out how we can seamlessly integrate marketing messages in these use-case scenarios that do not interrupt what the user is doing but enhances it, as in the coffee-coupon offer I described earlier.

Apple has introduced the WatchKit, providing new tools and APIs for developers to create unique experiences designed for the wrist. I can’t wait to see how this interface and an even smaller screen than on the cell phone will affect the way that we communicate and create.

Messages are going to be even shorter, using subtle graphics and taptic motion, yet need to be instantly recognizable and leave a lasting impact.

Welcome to the future, marketers. Let’s continue to innovate!

 

Newzoo/Overwolf’s August Top 20 PC Game Rankings

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In June 2014, Newzoo and Overwolf launched a new monthly ranking service that gives insight into the popularity of individual PC games in the US and Europe. The ranking is based on number of unique sessions during a calendar month amongst millions of game enthusiasts that use Overwolf’s in-game software.

The rankings for August 2014, especially in the Top 5, remain relatively unchanged from July 2014. Riot Games’s League of Legends stays unchallenged at #1, with indie developer Mojang’s Minecraft at the number 2 spot. Many might argue that Minecraft doesn’t qualify as a “core” PC title, but we see its players as part of the typical “enthusiast” group of gamers: they play their favorite game daily, have a high-end PC set-up and actively enhance their game experience using mods and add-on software. World of Tanks, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and World of Warcraft maintain their hold on the third, fourth and fifth spots on the rankings respectively.

Mods and Beta Versions Moving Up

As we move down the rankings we start to see some significant changes. Bohemia Interactive’s Dayz, originally a mod of Arma 2, re-entering at position 17 this month, continues to grow in popularity. It jumped two spots to take the #6 position, knocking Valve’s DOTA 2 down to #8. At position 11, Garry’s Mod, originally based on Half Life 2, continues its climb towards the top 10. The success of mods is illustrative of a games market that is increasingly driven by gamers themselves. This trend is currently accelerated by the explosive growth of eSports in the West and platforms such as Twitch, that provide gamers the tools to create, broadcast and share their favourite games.

Rockstar Games’s Grand Theft Auto has dropped the furthest on the August rankings, settling at #14. Of particular interest is the (re-)entry of 4 titles on our Core PC Rankings: Arma 2, War Thunder Beta, Aion and ArcheAge. After having dropped out of the top 20, War Thunder, officially still in Beta, seems to have found its community of fans as it climbs back into the charts. ArcheAge is a notable entry having just started its open Beta last week, after the reporting period of the August charts. Arma 2 is the only pay-to-play title of these four, a clear indicator of the rising consumer acceptance of the free-to-play business model.

No Cold War for Minecraft

What the rankings obscure is the interesting contradictions between the US and Russian PC market. The Top 20 Core PC Games in Russia includes Allods Online, Warface and Aion, titles that are absent from the US rankings (except for Aion, which has crept into the #20 position in the US). Vice versa, we see titles like Elder Scrolls Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Team Fortress 2 doing well in the US, despite not featuring in the Russian charts. There are game titles however whose popularity transcends oceans. Minecraft, for example, is a very popular title in both the US (#1) and Russia (#4). Minecraft‘s popularity is extremely interesting when you consider ‘bigger’ games don’t always achieve the same success across borders. An example is League of Legends, the top “truly core” PC game in the US, ranking low in Russia. DOTA 2 is the MOBA game of choice for Russians and is ranked as the runner-up to the obvious #1, World of Tanks. In fact, the Wargaming title had more unique sessions than all other games in the Russian top 10 put together . . .

What unites both the US and Russia is the relative dominance of F2P powered games, MMO’s and Mods. This clearly indicates that while particular game tastes differ between the two countries, consumers from both sides are united by their continued embrace of the newer revenue models and game types.

Notes from [a]listdaily

It’s interesting to note how the games at the top of the list aren’t changing positions, which can be attributed to the longevity of the games and the dedication of the fan base. Being free-to-play helps, too, as players can stick with a game even if there’s nothing motivating them to buy something in a particular month. Continual drops of new content, a standard feature of the top games, keeps player interest high and encourages lapsed players to return to take a look at the new content.

In a couple of notable exceptions, Minecraft and World of Warcraft, the appeal isn’t due to new content appearing — at least, not from the publishers. In both cases, the appeal is derived from the players. Minecraft continues to enthrall due to what the players themselves are creating, or what they are watching other players create. With World of Warcraft, the appeal is the interaction with other players… and to some extent at this point, increasing anticipation over the new Warlords of Draenor expansion due to arrive soon.

Pachter: ‘The End of Consoles As We Know It’

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At the Cloud Gaming USA conference in San Francisco last week, Wedbush Securities managing director Michael Pachter addressed the audience about why games are heading to the cloud — or, “the end of the console era as we know it,” as Pachter put it.

Pachter reviewed the history of the console business from 1985 on, when Nintendo perfected the console as the way to play games on the TV (and, as a necessary part of that, restored retailer confidence in the console business). Games were largely single player, and the business model was packaged goods sales for consoles, with a pay-as-you-go model for arcades (which were still a big business at that time). Between 1986 and 2000, this model held true, and developers were able to plan ahead with some degree of confidence. Development budgets were a function of overall sales potential, and brands drove sales. Gaming was “anti-social,” said Pachter, and static, while the graphics constantly improved, with the microprocessor and display required at the consumption point.

Between 2001 and 2008, Halo and the Xbox redefined the console market as multiplayer gaming emerged on consoles. Nintendo’s Wii and the DS grew the total market, and packaged goods drove 90 percent of the industry revenue. From 2009 to 2011, MMOs peaked and the model shifted to free-to-play, while DLC and microtransactions supplemented game sales. Social games emerged, mobile phones became smart, and the music genre collapsed while the Wii moved “to the storage closet,” in Pachter’s phrase.

Change accelerated in the market from 2012 to 2013, with the collapse of social games and mobile games becoming a big business. Multiplayer for console became the norm, free-to-play became the new subscription, and packaged goods sales continued their decline. Now we come to 2014, where, in Pachter’s words, “Everyone loves mobile; smartphones/tablets are the new consoles.” The trends of 2013 continue.

Pachter believes that part of what led the industry to this point was the Wii and its appeal to women, playing titles like Wii Fit and Wii Bowling, then getting into social games and now mobile games. But social games blew it, Pachter says, by “overcharging for a less-than-compelling game experience.” PVE emerged with an arcade-style monetization scheme, while PVP continues to evolve and thrive, with games like League of Legends becoming enormous hits. “That’s really where all the money is in free-to-play,” noted Pachter.

“Even with new console launches, we’re still seeing packaged goods sales decline,” Pachter said. “The packaged goods market in 2008, the Western market, was $22 billion. In 2013, $11 billion. So, cut in half. Again, some of it supplemented by digital sales, a lot of it shifted to digital software sales from new people like Supercell.”

“I heard a stat from Activision, I believe this was in 2012, that 75 percent of the people who buy Call of Duty never play the single-player campaign,” Pachter said. “That’s just upside down from where it was ten years prior. Multiplayer has really hurt single-player game experiences. 25 million people play Call of Duty monthly, but that pales in comparison to 2.5 billion people on the Internet. That’s 1 percent of the Internet, that’s nothing.”

“The old single-player game, you paid $60 and played for 30 hours. It runs out to about 15 cents an hour now, you pay $75 and play for 500 hours,” explained Pachter, adding in some expense for DLC. He feels that the best and worst thing about free-to-play games is that they are free — more players play games, but the majority of game play generates zero revenue. No other entertainment medium gives its content away, Pachter points out. When will games stop making this mistake, he asks

“Free-to-play should go away,” Pachter said. “I think you need ad-supported, I think you need the Pandora model. I think the game guys are just stupid, they accept something less than they should.”

Where we’re going in the time frame of 2015 to 2020 is critical, Pachter believes. “Content will be available anywhere, on any device. Devices are getting more powerful — you’re not going to need a PC” for most applications, including games. TVs will become more connected. Packaged goods will still exist, so long as there’s still a market for single-player games and publishers remain greedy.

“Consoles have to adapt, or they’re going to go away,” Pachter asserted. Pachter believes big publishers will be looking for ways to get the revenue that Microsoft and Sony currently get for Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. “Activision’s going to say, ‘if you don’t have an Xbox, buy Call of Duty on the PC and play on our network for two bucks a month. Activision would rather keep all the money, obviously.”

Pachter sees this desire to keep all the money leading to big publishers looking for ways to cut consoles out of the loop, even to the point of sending controllers to households along with a game purchase. He believes they will also offer some sort of cloud gaming solution. “They’re going to do it, because they’re greedy,” Pachter said. “When you look at Sony’s PS TV, that’s really console gaming without a console. PlayStation Now is kind of console gaming without a console. Sony is thinking this through, they see the future.”

“Consoles are going to lose half of their share, and the market is going to grow a lot,” Pachter continued. He sees the future as a hybrid model, with roles to be played by mobile devices, set-top-boxes or microconsoles, and consoles, but the era of console domination is over. “Right now there’s 1.7 billion smartphones out there, there’s 260 million consoles. The number of people playing games has gone up by an order of magnitude, and I think it’s going to go up again. There will be 4 billion people playing games in the very near future.”

Pachter saved some of his choicest remarks when asked by the [a]listdaily about Nintendo’s place in the future of gaming. “Nintendo’s got a ton of cash, they’re not going away,” Pachter said, stating that bankruptcy for Nintendo is “not possible.” He enumerated Nintendo’s failings, though. “Nintendo still has not figured out online multiplayer, though Mario Kart now has multiplayer. Nintendo hasn’t really ever figured out anything digital, though there are Pokémon trading cards going digital for the first time. I read about Mario Kart DLC about a week ago, and it had never occurred to me that there had never been DLC in a Nintendo game before. That’s mind-boggling to me. They are more than a decade behind the curve, and they are so insular that there’s no desire internally to actually learn from others.”

“There’s no place for Nintendo,” Pachter concluded. “There’s a place for their content, there’s no place for a Nintendo device. Nintendo hardware goes away, because nobody cares. The only reason anybody buys Nintendo hardware is because you really want to play their software, and I think they’re going to end up having to abandon hardware because they’re going to get destroyed on the Wii U — they already have been — and they’re going to get destroyed even further on the handhelds. Every kid who wanted a DS ten years ago, the 10 and younger kid, today wants a smartphone. As I said, I think consoles go away anyway, so Nintendo suffers even if they hit the right console the next cycle — there won’t be a next cycle. Consoles are so much less relevant five years out.”

‘Heavenly Sword’ Producer Discusses CGI Movie Adaptation

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With UK developer Ninja Theory working on a brand new Sony PlayStation 4 IP, Hellblade, fans of the studio’s Sony PlayStation 3 game Heavenly Sword are finally getting something new. While it’s not a sequel to the beloved action game, it’s a new CGI origin story that has been designed to expand the story with film sequels down the line. The movie features the voices of Anna Torv, Alfred Molina and Thomas Jane. The Blu-ray and DVD launched this week from Cinedigm, leaving it up to fans to dictate more linear content.

This marks the first of multiple CGI movie adaptations from Blockade Entertainment, which is also working on a Ratchet & Clank movie with Insomniac Games. David Wohl, vice president of production at Blockade Entertainment and producer of the Heavenly Sword CGI movie, talks about adapting the game into a new entertainment property in this exclusive interview.

Why did you choose Heavenly Sword for a movie adaptation?

When we look for video game properties that we’d like to develop into feature animated films, there are always several criteria that we look at. First, does it have compelling characters and a story that, if developed into a feature, an audience would want to see Every game has its fans, but our goal is to create a film that will be enjoyed by those fans as well as those who have never heard of the game.

With a strong, charismatic reluctant hero in Nariko, and the vicious, malevolent despot Bohan, as well as an array of colorful costars representing Nariko’s clan as well as her enemies, we felt that Heavenly Sword definitely fit the bill. And with its vast library of beautiful designs and environments, as well as richly detailed CG models created by WETA, it fit our other most important criterion — being able to use existing material to reduce the pre-production cost, thereby enabling us to create quality animation at a lower cost. This was especially important for Heavenly Sword, which, as our first film, needed to be created within very stringent budget guidelines.

How did you work with the developer on this film?

In the early stages of production, we were constantly in touch with [developer] Ninja Theory and Sony Computer Entertainment as we began to develop the story of the film. They were extremely helpful, giving us backstory on all the characters and helping to guide the vision of the story. They had given much thought to where the characters would go after their story (if a sequel was ever to be created) and they were very forthcoming with this information, allowing us to seed our film with some of these ideas. Of course, like any film development process, there were times along the way when our story needed to diverge from the game story for one reason or another — and whenever this happened, our partners were supportive of our choices, and were always helpful in figuring out solutions to any story questions that arose.

 

What will fans of the game find new from watching this movie?

First, I just want to say that when we chose to focus on developing existing video game properties into feature films, we were well aware of the stigma associated with many of these films. There’s no need to list them here, as I’m sure everyone can think of many examples of films of this type that failed for one reason or another. In analyzing this fact, we found that, with very few exceptions, the filmmakers were unable to capture the essence of what made the game successful in the first place, and because of that, they often lost the support of the fans of the game, which, to us, is unacceptable.

Obviously we want the film to be accessible to everyone — not just Heavenly Sword game fans — but at the same time, we never want to alienate the core audience. So, when we were developing Heavenly Sword, we were very sensitive to the legions of fans of the game, but at the same time, we didn’t just want to regurgitate the story they already knew. So, as I hinted at above, there are definitely areas where we took some liberties with Nariko’s journey and the backstory of the Heavenly Sword, adding new twists that will have fans of the game definitely curious about where it’s headed, but we’re confident that they’ll have as much fun watching the tale as we did making it, and in the end, we feel that they’ll enjoy the new places where we took the characters, while paying homage to the elements that made the game a success.

What is your CGI process for bringing Heavenly Sword to film?

We were very fortunate with Heavenly Sword because even though our budget was considerably lower than the usual animated film, we had the benefit of an extremely rich assortment of characters and environments that were already built and nearly ready to be used. As with all films of this type, we still needed to increase the detail of the assets, but they started from such a strong place, the work wasn’t as costly and time consuming as it would’ve needed to be if the assets were of lesser quality. Once they were ready, we worked with a combination of motion capture and keyframe animation to create the film.

Our only small regret, really, is that as we were completing production of the film, the next generation of videogames were beginning to be unveiled, and with them, even higher-quality assets were being created to match the incredible power of these new machines. Sadly, due to our time and budget considerations, we were unable to boost the quality of our assets to match those of what we knew would soon be seen by the public. But hopefully if we can make a sequel, we can take the characters to the next level!

What impact do you feel a successful home video run will have on a video game sequel?

When we first talked to Sony about the project, we discussed the idea of making a film that would bridge the gap between the first game and a potential sequel. Ultimately we decided that this wouldn’t be satisfying to much of the audience who were likely unfamiliar with the property, so we chose to do a version of the origin story that would be familiar enough for fans of the game to appreciate it, yet different enough (especially at the very end) for them to see where a possible sequel could potentially go.

Since there hasn’t been a Heavenly Sword game for several years, we hope that this film will remind the game fans why they liked the game in the first place (beyond the renowned gameplay, of course!), while introducing a whole new generation of fans to Nariko, Kai, Bohan, Flying Fox and the rest of the stellar cast of characters inhabiting the world of Heavenly Sword. Hopefully this combination will kindle a desire for a sequel to the game (and film, of course). We’re very happy with the final product, but time will tell.

What opportunities do you see CGI opening up for video games?

Really, the sky’s the limit. As the cinematic quality of games continues to improve, as well as the quality of the assets themselves, and as kids grow up into adults who have spent their lives seeing video games as a legitimate storytelling medium, the line between the two will continue to grow thinner, and the two will cross over more and more frequently, until there really will be no difference at all except for the interactivity that a game offers, versus the passive experience of watching a film. And frankly, I wouldn’t even be surprised if that went away eventually and movie watching in itself will become more of an interactive experience.

Are there plans to extend the story with a movie sequel?

We definitely had a sequel in mind when we wrote the ending of the film, so really our fate is in the audience’s hands now. But if we were blessed with the green light, we definitely have plenty of ideas on where the story would go.

Pocket Gems Takes ‘Ugly Americans’ Interactive

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Pocket Gems is taking Comedy Central’s animated show about zombies, wizards and social workers to mobile devices using Pocket Gems’ Episode platform for interactive storytelling. These will be , created through a partnership between Pocket Gems and the creator and writers of the original Ugly Americans TV series. The stories have been created on Pocket Gems’ Episode platform, which, in the coimpany’s words, “redefines storytelling for the modern mobile audience.” The stories are part game and part animated comic with choices that shape the otucome, and are available now via the iTunes App Store and Google Play.

“We had such a blast creating this world and these characters for the TV show,” said the show’s creator, Devin Clark. “It has been a real pleasure revisiting them in this new format. Also, maybe now I won’t have to live in a cardboard box on the street.”

“Essentially, Episode enabled us to create a video game and comic book experience where fans can enjoy the Ugly Americans humor and universe in a singular way,” said Dan Yang, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Consumer Products.

“We’re incredibly thrilled to present Ugly Americans in a new format that people haven’t seen before which still honors the spirit of the show,” said Daniel Terry, Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Pocket Gems. “We think that Episode will both connect Ugly Americans with a brand new audience while giving existing fans of the show a chance to reconnect with it.”

The [a]listdaily spoke with Michael Dawson, vice president of business development for Pocket Gems, about the new interactive show.

What sort of marketing is planned for these interactive episodes How will you reach fans of the animated show?

We believe the new Ugly Americans episodes will appeal to both people discovering the show for the first time and long-time fans. We’re working closely with Comedy Central, leveraging channels like their Facebook page, to combine their marketing with Pocket Gems’ mobile expertise.

Do you plan on a regular release schedule for new interactive episodes, or will it be depending on the pace of development and demand?

In general, we release new interactive episodes on a rolling basis to keep up with the huge demand for content we’ve seen so far. If you look at our new user interface, you can see the Episode audience has tons of stories to read across genres from romance to comedy. We’re currently working with both professional and community authors to ensure there will always be enough content to meet demand.

Are you looking for other properties to turn into interactive episodes, and if so, what criteria are you using to select such properties?

We’re talking to a lot of people currently and will have more IP deals to announce soon. Nothing to share just yet, though. Our only criteria is great stories, regardless of medium.

Can you share any information about the reception of Episode so far

It’s exceeding our expectations on both writer sign-ups and audience engagement. So far we’ve seen over 250 million chapters read and over 700,000 author signups since launching.

Unreal Engine 4 Goes Free To Academia

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The games and game developers being crafted at universities will be getting more Unreal soon, as Epic Games is making Unreal Engine 4 free to schools and universities. Educational organizations can obtain Unreal Engine 4 access for faculty and students through unrealengine.com/education. Clearly, Epic is looking to make Unreal Engine 4 one of the standard tools used by students, and looking to see that expertise translate into greater use in the commercial marketplace as students graduate and move into industry.

“Unreal Engine 4 is the most accessible, beginner-friendly version of the engine ever created,” according to the company. “Developed by Epic Games, the award-winning Unreal Engine is known for world-class graphics, tools and scalability across PC, console, mobile, Web and VR,” noted the company’s statement.

Jim Whitehead is an Associate Professor and Chair of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he helped create the Computer Game Design program. His view of Epic’s new program to provide Unreal Engine 4 for free is positive. “We like to encourage our students to work with C++, and hence Unreal is attractive to us because it is a full-featured game engine where you customize using C++,” said Whitehead. “Unity, which we had been using, emphasizes use of C#. Unreal will also be attractive at the free price point (assuming no gotchas in the license), since Unity has been somewhat expensive.”

Still, Whitehead doesn’t see the transition happening rapidly. “Unity currently has a lot of mindshare among our students, so I imagine it will take some time to turn this around in favor of Unreal,” he noted.

The [a]listdaily spoke exclusively with Unreal Engine general manager Ray Davis about the new program for academia.

What led to the decision to make Unreal Engine 4 available to the academic community?

It was a culmination of growing interest from educators who have previously integrated engine technology into their courses, along with repeated feedback from students in our community who really wanted to see free access to Unreal Engine 4.

Additionally many of the developers at Epic today were able to learn game development techniques in the past using UDK, the free version of Unreal Engine 3, so it only made sense to make UE4 widely available to help fuel the next generation of game developers.

UE4 can also serve as a valuable learning tool even outside of game development — be it traditional computer science, film majors, or even architectural visualization, all of these tracks can benefit from the technology provided with UE4.

Have you discussed this with some institutions already? What has been the response?

Since our launch back in March several educators have been in touch with us and we’ve been working with them to provide access to UE4. For those early adopters we’ve received a lot of great feedback that has helped us further improve the engine and our supporting documentation. I can only imagine those educators will be excited by our new open approach that gives them unrestricted access to Unreal Engine from here on out.

As many student projects end up becoming commercial software, how will you deal with the use of Unreal Engine 4 in such a case?

Students who choose to cross over into indie developer territory and ship their class projects as full games will be under the same agreement that other UE4 developers work with today. Successful games that make more than $3,000 per quarter are obligated to pay Epic 5 percent of gross revenues which means we only are successful when the developers themselves are successful.

Student developers now have no upfront costs to build their masterpiece, and can ship on any number of platforms with UE4 without any additional fees.

What’s the response been to the new Unreal Engine 4 licensing program announced back in March?

People continue to surprise and inspire us with their contributions to the UE4 community. Developers have already created content and features that have far exceeded our expectations.

Given that we make the entire C++ source code available through GitHub, we’ve been blown away by how many engine modifications and features that the community has pushed back to us for inclusion in version updates. We’ve built a fairly open and transparent dialogue with our community which has been well-received by developers using the engine and also really helped us dramatically refine our approach to building future releases.

What does the future hold for Unreal Engine?

The list of planned features and improvements is long! In the near term we’ll continue polishing existing workflows and features. For example, we have efforts in flight to make sure any developer targeting a mobile device or using a laptop as their primary machine consistently have great development experiences with the engine. We also have concerted pushes along new features such as 2D support, refining our UI editor, and also supporting emerging VR platforms such as Oculus and Sony’s Morpheus. At any given time everyone is welcome to see our development roadmap at unrealengine.com/roadmap and vote on the features they’re most interested in seeing next!

Kabam Launches Transmedia Game

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Fast-growing mobile and social game company Kabam has been very successful with massively multiplayer social games like Dragons of Atlantis: Heirs of the Dragon and Kingdoms of Camelot, along with licensed titles like The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth and Fast & Furious 6: The Game. Recently the company received a $120 million strategic investment from the diversified Chinese company Alibaba, along with a partnership for Alibaba to publish and distribute Kabam’s games in China. This investment values Kabam at more than $1 billion, which is in line with the compay’s expected revenue of over $550 million this year.

John Young

Kabam is launching a medieval-themed massively multiplayer strategy war game, Kings of the Realm, for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, available worldwide on the App Store. The game is free-to-play, like all Kabam games, and lets players build up a massive medieval city and great armies through conquest. Players can also join forces with other players, and perhaps eventually be crowned King. Kings of the Realm is the first title developed by Digit Game Studios, a 20-person game development studio in Dublin, Ireland.

The twist with Kings of the Realm is that this is a transmedia game that launches together with a book published by Penguin and written by Oisin McGann, Kings of the Realm: Cruel Salvation. The novel is the second book in a series that, as its press release states, “delves into the characters and rich lore of a world in conflict. Gamers can immerse themselves in the complex personal struggles of the heroes in the book, while readers can forge their own destiny in the living world of the game. Designed with close collaboration between the writer and the developers, the interplay between books and game forges new ground in immersive entertainment.”

Kabam executive producer John Young spoke exclusively with [a]list daily about Kings of the Realm and its transmedia impact

What lead to the creation of this transmedia event . . . did the first novel start things off, or was this conceived initially by the author and the game developers as a transmedia project?

Our developer, Digit Game Studios, conceived of a compelling world of dark epic fantasy. The gritty realism was a refreshing change from the more cartoony strategy games that are popular. The game is the lead product and the book is designed to accentuate the world. During development, it came to the attention of one the editors of the Game of Thrones books who’d recently moved to Penguin. With their interest, an author was commissioned and he worked closely with the development team to write the books.

The first book details how a great evil was unleashed, and the personal struggles of some heroes who fight a heroic rearguard action against it. The game begins with the survivors starting to build anew, and allows characters from the book to be commanders of player armies in the game. The second book, also launching with the game, follows the heroes into this new world . . . I can’t give away the plot, but of course “adventures happen.” The books give life to the commanders and troops, while the game lets readers experience it all firsthand. It’s a combo that feels fun.

In addition to being cross-media, the game is cross-platform, with iOS, Android, and Kabam.com web players (and others!) all fighting in the same world against each other. We’ve even given special commanders to the mobile players. It’s all about making a compelling world that players can enjoy anywhere or in any medium.

How did Kabam come upon this property, and what aspects led Kabam to sign this?

Kabam Publishing looks at a lot of games, but Kings of the Realm really stood out. People were literally standing around in our office admiring the city screen on a widescreen monitor, which has over 80 uniquely crafted and animated buildings, all hand drawn and of varied shapes and sizes. It’s really the most beautiful city of any strategy game I’ve played. That was the light bulb moment—it just looks better than any game out there.

When we met the high quality team, and they wanted the kind of monetization, marketing, and featuring expertise we bring, we knew it was a great match. Together we’ve iterated, localized, tested, and collaborated on design. It’s a tremendous partnership and I see a strong future in 10-30 person teams building something with passion and focus, and then being accelerated by a company like Kabam.

Will the book be available as an e-book and a print book? Will there be cross-marketing between the book and the game, and what form will it take?

The book is largely electronic. We’re going to do cool things like have tournaments in the game that have the books as prizes, trivia contests in the in-game chat that reveal some of the lore that the books contains, cross-promotion between Kabam and Penguin’s respective newsletters, websites, and social media properties. We have grander plans as well.

Is a transmedia property like this easier or more difficult to market, and why?

Players and readers seem impressed by it, but players generally are looking for a game to play and readers generally want a book to read. So it’s not necessarily easy to drive an install by telling people that there is a book also. The game needs to be awesome in and of itself, and likewise for the book. This probably helps more with retention than with acquisition. But mostly we’re doing it because it’s cool and seems right for Kings of the Realm.

What do you see as the future for Kings of the Realm in terms of additional content (both for the game and for the novels)?

The novels feature a lot of the Devourers, zombie-like undead who are kicking the butts of humans, elves, and dwarves. They don’t exist in the game . . . yet. They kicked our butts in the books, so you can bet there is something exciting coming to the game once they catch up to the players. So you can expect events, world bosses, and some unique gameplay coming from that direction.

We have a huge items/crafting system that we’re hard at work on. It will really change the game and add tremendous depth to an already very intricate strategy game. Armor sets and epic weapons crafted to defeat wall-mounted ballistae and defensive catapults Coming soon!

We have big plans for a robust, unstable alliance system. What are “unstable” alliances We’re very inspired by MMOs like EVE Online, and so we can expect a multi-tier feudal network when players will have incentive to cooperate . . . until they suddenly don’t! Maintaining a great alliance will take diplomatic skill as well as military might.

Kabam has done very well with licensing established IP, and Kings of the Realm seems like getting in on the ground floor of a new IP. Do you expect Kabam to sign more new IP projects like this one, or stick more with established licenses?

Kabam does have a great track record working with the biggest IPs in the business (Hunger Games, Marvel, Mad Max, and Lord of the Rings are all upcoming partnerships we’ve announced). But we’re intentionally balanced: we have great internal projects and published projects which have created their own beautiful worlds. We hope that Kings of the Realm is perceived in a few years as an established IP, but first we need to make the game great and players thrilled. The beta has been fantastic so we have high hopes.

What sort of marketing is planned for Kings of the Realm, and does this differ from marketing other properties that are not transmedia?

Kabam is really, really good at acquisition marketing for games. It will be interesting to see whether the tie-ins we’ve done (for example, links from inside the book to the game) will be significant compared to the huge numbers that classic UA and platform featuring generate. We’re learning every day, which is what makes the process so much fun.

Who is Kings of the Realm designed for?

If you want to build an epic city, Kings of the Realm is for you. If you enjoy complex strategic decisions about which armies with which commanders and troops to sack which district of an enemy city, Kings of the Realm is for you. Kabam pretty much invented mobile strategy games, but hats off to the team at Machine Zone for Game of War. It’s a great game, but if you like that, check of Kings of the Realm and compare the two. We think you’ll like what you find.

Niantic Labs’ ‘Ingress Obsessed’ Video Marketing

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Niantic Labs has been experiencing great success with its location-based game Ingress, drawing large crowds to regular events and creating a dedicated fan base. Downloaded more than 5 million times on iOS and Android devices, Ingress, the massively multiplayer real-world mobile game, has seen players from around the world come together to overcome tremendous odds and achieve amazing goals. Google’s Niantic Labs (an in-house startup) has been producing two shows based on the game with excellent response from the fans. The shows, Ingress Report and Ingress Obssessed, are posted on YouTube, and offer two different views of the Ingress game. Ingress Report is for the hardcore player, being an inside news report of the events in the game. By contrast, Ingress Obssessed is designed to introduce people to Ingress, following the adventures of two sisters as they play the game.

Ingress Obsessed Season 2 is packed to the brim with these candid moments of players banding together for an adventure of a lifetime, according to Niantic. John Hanke, founder of Niantic Labs, spoke with the [a]listdaily about Ingress and its future.

These shows are obviously done with great care and a lot of effort. What lead to the decision to create these shows around Ingress?

When we created Ingress Report, which we’ve been doing for well over a year at this point, it really showcased the player community. After we launched Ingress we really didn’t know what to expect. We really felt that the strongest thing about the game was the community it engendered. We felt like a show that brought that to the forefront, where we could show other players playing the game, we could feature activities and missions that people had gone on, that would be a great way to spread the word about the game. The Ingress Report had a second mission to guide people along this rather complicated narrative. Because we tell the story in the form of an alternate reality game, it comes out piecemeal. Which can be very engaging, very deep and very cool, but it’s also complicated. So we developed the Ingress Report, which lets us summarize and recap and and allow people to keep up with the story.

Ingress Obsessed came out of the idea to take one aspect of the community and go further with it. That is the aspect of the user mission, these cases where users get together and they decide it would be really epic or awesome to go do a specific op together, and they get together and they plan these things, sometimes for months, and then they go out and execute them. It can mean international travel, it can mean all kinds of crazy logistics. We love hearing about those things. We kept hearing about ever grander and crazier missions people were going on, so we said ‘It would be great if we could capture this on video.’ We worked on it for a while and developed this idea for a show, there are these two girls who are sisters, they meet up with players, and they themselves are players. Really they’re actresses, but within the context of the show they are players. The real players accept them as players, take them inside their planning sessions, and basically they become part of the team.

What do you think these shows are doing for you?

By showcasing the community they are putting our best foot forward, attracting new users for the game, as well as energizing our existing players. Users love seeing themselves, and they love seeing people they know — it’s a great way to solidify the existing user base. They are our best way to explain to the world what’s cool about Ingress. It’s hard to explain it to other people, and by bringing it to life in the form of a video with an attractive, compelling host, some narrative, some drama, we’re very happy with that in the way it communicates to the world. We have a very high social engagement rate, which is something we measure through comments, and a very high Like rating, so we know people are enjoying the content. We’re frequently picked up by media outlets when they’re writing about Ingress. They really show what we’re doing and what’s fun about it.

What other marketing efforts for Ingress are you doing, besides these shows?

We put on these events, we call them Anomalies, we have them every other weekend in two cities, typically one in the US and one elsewhere in the world. Last weekend was the Czech Republic and Detroit, Michigan. I guess you would call it, in marketing speak, event marketing. We’ll have anywhere from 500 to 1200 people that will come to a city. This last weekend, between the two primary cities and the satellite ones that players self-organize, we had 4500 people at this event. That’s the primary marketing that we do.

We have these events all over the world: Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, one in Bangalore. Those are great marketing tools for us. The people who come really have a great time, they just immerse themselves in Ingress for the day. It’s an active thing where you’re outside, you’re walking, there’s competition, there’s an after party, where we give away stickers and collectible trading cards and comic books. It’s a great way to energize the fan base.

The other innovative thing that we’re doing is that we bought an RV and branded as an Ingress black van. It has a tag, NL1331, that van shows up at these Anomaly events; it was in Detroit this last weekend. We have over 17,000 miles on the van and we brought it into service the second quarter of this year, it’s been very very busy. It’s got some great custom branding on it, it’s a really cool vehicle — people love to come to meetups and have their picture taken with the van and post that to social media. It’s really become a character in the game.

Recently Ingress launched on iOS. What has the response been like on iOS?

We’re really happy with iOS. Not only have we gotten a lot of iOS users, it actually increased our acquisition rate on Android as well. I believe that’s because it’s allowed people who’ve been fans of the product on Android to spread it via their social networks to iOS users as well as Android users. In certain markets like Japan, which is a very iOS heavy market overall, it’s really been a catalyst to break the game out into a very visible hot thing.

What does the future hold for Ingress?

We want to get the whole world off the couch and onto the parks, roadways, and streets of the world. The next thing up for us is Endgame, which we’re working on to launch in October. The game will be a lot like Ingress in that it’s a multiplayer game that requires you to go out into the real world. It has some attributes to it that Ingress does not have, including player-versus-player combat and it has a pretty different feel. There’s a story component to that, there will be an alternate reality game on the web, and all of that will build to a great film launch in 2015 or 2016.

With Ingress the next big evolution this coming month is missions, which will give people the ability to take their favorite portals or field trip cards and turn those into missions that people can complete, for your town or community. We think players are going to have a lot of fun with this. We hope to have that out before the end of the year.

Gamer Loyalty Plays Into Profits

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In the early days of the electronic game industry, games were usually treated as unique events. Games would ship, reside on store shelves for a while, and then vanish. Players might keep playing the game for months afterward, but there was always something new to look for. Most games were completely new — there were very few games that had sequels.

Gradually, though, the long-term success of games like the Ultima series showed there was a benefit to creating sequels. Players were already familiar with a game, and with advancing technology new games in a series could offer better graphics and more interesting game play.

When multiplayer games began to be popular, this trend accelerated. Familiar brands drew fans, and they kept interest in the games alive by talking with each other. As persistent online worlds developed, the game didn’t have sequels per se — the worlds got bigger and more elaborate instead.

Game companies have learned in this new business model of games-as-a-service that audience retention is where profits really reside. Acquisition costs have been rising for all sorts of games, not just mobile games. As analytics have become part of most games, they show the value inherent in keeping players around for the long term when you have virtual goods to sell them.

A study at the University of Buffalo showed some of the ways that gamers can be made more loyal to a particular game. “The graphics and technology behind the games have improved over the years, but developers haven’t made much effort to understand what makes MMORPG players really commit to one game over another,” explains study co-author Lawrence Sanders, PhD, professor of management science and systems in the UB School of Management. “Most prior research has focused on the addictive nature of these games. Our study looked at how to make them more competitive in the marketplace,” says Sanders.

The study examined 173 players to assess whether two game-play strategies produced loyal players. The most loyal players were able to customize their characters, thereby making them more personal and loyalty could also be grown through the creation of in-game chat systems and guilds. “To build a player’s feeling of ownership towards its character, game makers should provide equal opportunities for any character to win a battle,” said one of the researchers, Lawrence Sanders, Ph.D, professor of management science and systems in the UB School of Management. “They should also build more selective or elaborate chat rooms and guild features to help players socialize.” They found that the average MMORPG gamer plays 22 hours a week and that increasing customer retention by 5 percent can “increase profits by 25 to 95 percent,” said Sanders.

Loyalty is an important quality to hardware manufacturers, too. Or at least they think it is. It turns out that a recent Nielsen study found that 31 percent of PlayStation 4 owners already had an an Xbox 360 or Wii, but not a PlayStation 3. Some 17 percent didn’t have any of the old-gen consoles. The study did not ask if any of that 31 percent had owned a PlayStation in the past, but still suggested gamers were not die-hard brand loyalists when it came to upgrading their system. The data was provided to Re/code and the study took place between February and April and featured 1,200 gamers aged seven to 54.

Sony recently used Gamescom to let people know it had sold 10 million consoles worldwide. “The 10 million sell through in the first nine months is well beyond what we had hoped for,” said Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida in a recent interview. “I’m asking marketing people to tell us why. They’ve been to people who already purchased, and some of the early data was amazing in terms of the number of people who didn’t used to own PS3 have already purchased PS4. So we are getting lots of new customers coming into PlayStation. And some people never purchased any last-gen hardware: PS3, or Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii. So where did they come from ”

Certainly both Microsoft and Sony have been doing their best to persuade owners of the last generation of consoles to buy the new generation from the same company. Broadening Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus subscriptions to cover both old and new hardware is one way to do this. That’s one less $50 thing a customer has to buy, after all, when buying a new console.

Of course, the fact that most of the biggest new titles are available on both consoles makes it easier to switch brands, if you so desire. That’s why exclusive games are more important than ever. Unfortunately, many of the most anticipated exclusives have moved into 2015, so the incentives for brand loyalty won’t be as strong as they could be this holiday season.

Focusing on customer retention is a far more profitable enterprise than acquisition, especially with the rising costs of acquiring new customers. Satisfied customers will bring in new players, so keeping satisfied players engaged is an effective acquisition strategy for most games.

Ultimately, though, the quality of the games will matter more than any particular brand. That’s why consoles have a hard time building loyalty, because players will go where the best games are regardless of the console brand. The best strategy is to make sure the games are great first, and then worry about brand-building second. Great games will do much of the brand-building for you, if you let them.